Arabul 'mahapurush' jab by Buddha

Calcutta, Jan. 14: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today sarcastically labelled Bhangar's Trinamul strongman Arabul Islam "mahapurush'' and said the state government did not arrest him to use such people for winning the panchayat elections.

"You have seen what happened in Bhangar recently. Our party MLA (Abdur Rezzak Mollah) was attacked by a Trinamul leader (Arabul). He is really a mahapurush (great man). I have never seen this mahapurush earlier. I don't even know him. He did all the hooliganism…. But the state government did not arrest him,'' the former chief minister told a CPM rally in Rajarhat this evening.

He added: "What is the message this government wanted to send to Trinamul workers in the districts by not booking this mahapurush? The message is, carry on with your anarchy and we won't arrest you. That's because this government wants to use many such mahapurush to win the panchayat polls.''

Bhattacharjee termed Trinamul a party of "lumpens'' and warned such people were increasing in the districts.

In the same breath, Bhattacharjee asked the gathering to come forward and not yield any ground to Trinamul in the rural elections. "Let there be a fight between civilised people and Trinamul anti-socials. We want to see who eventually wins,'' he added.

The former chief minister once again talked about the need to set up industry in the state, asserting that Bengal wouldn't progress without factories and industrial units.

Yesterday, Bhattacharjee had criticised the Trinamul government, saying the state hadn't moved an "inch forward'' from where the Left government had left off on industry.

"Look at Haldia. During our tenure, 60 industrial units had come up there. It led to direct and indirect employment of 40,000 people. But now, not a single unit has set up shop in Haldia… nothing has progressed in Rajarhat,'' he said, perhaps keeping in mind Bengal Leads that would kick off at Haldia tomorrow.

Singur and Nandigram came back in his speech as in other party meetings. While the former chief minister talked about "lost opportunities'' in Singur, he also justified the Left government's move to set up a petroleum, chemicals and petrochemicals zone in Nandigram.

"I didn't run after Ratan Tata. I ran after employment generation. If Singur was allowed to happen, we would have seen the generation of 10,000 jobs there,'' he said.

"If the petrochemicals complex would have come up in Nandigram, it would have turned into another Haldia. People of Nandigram didn't want it. We set our eyes on the Nayachar island for that project. But that was also resisted,'' Bhattacharjee lamented.

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